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Nothing will change. It is the mentality of the American people who love their guns, and have the money and power to keep the politicians in line. They can make all the excuses 'Right to bare arms', whatever, nothing will change. Just like religion, it is all about instilling fear, and it has worked. A school can have the army ringed around it, a would be murderer, will just up the ante and set up a machine gun.

There will be massacres in theatres, schools, hospitals, whatever. Any of these establishments can have armed guards, buzzers, security cameras, all that will do, if a person wants to kill as many people as he can, he will simply be more prepared for confrontation, and still take down as many people as he can.

Nothing will change with people of your ilk running around. I would be willing to bet that if everyone was required to carry a firearm that there may be a small spike in crime followed by a drastic drop case in point, how many people have been shot at a gun show? Because when we talk about this issue, we have to bring in other situations as well now. The would be assailant would most definitly think twice before trying to mug a family of four if he knew that both parents were carrying firearms. Now along with this argument comes the reverse side of it, in that there are MANY people that SHOULD NOT carry firearms. Where you draw the line is I think where this debate ought to be, not what type of weapons should be allowed or how many rounds a magazine can carry. You are right in one respect, in that in reality, crime will always be present, as will war, famine, hate, life, death and taxes, but does that mean we should just lock everything up and hope someone takes care of us? We are a country founded on individualism and the right to be who we are hence the whole "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, ....with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Mass punishments have never been the correct answer to any problem, and have a tendency to backfire (Revolution anyone?). I for one, as a person, a father of two, would much rather everyone carry than no one carry, because as you stated, there will always be crime, and as great of a Government as we have, I am not willing to risk the lives of MY family for the erroneous actions of a few.

As for your comment about an army ringing the school, well, at least those are people WILLING to lay down their lives for the protection of others because we KNOW that type of behavior exists instead of hoping and praying that someone gets there in time (case in point Connecticut). And FYI, I personally know several people that could do an immense more amount of damage with a pistol than some mentally derranged teen with a fully automatic machine gun.

Also with that logic, would it really matter if we took ALL of the guns away? They would find another way to carry out their acts wouldnt they?

Congratulations, you attempted to use accidental shootings as a parallel to the intentional shootings at a school. And on top of that, it was 5 in three DIFFERENT locations, and NONE of them died. you got me there buddy, congratulations. I guess it is my fault for not being clear enough for the dim. HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE WALKED INTO A GUN SHOW AND INTENTIONALLY WENT ON A SHOOTING SPREE TRYING TO KILL PEOPLE. Clear anough for ya?

Wow, man, you're getting really up in arms here. Your example did nothing more that to highlight how important gun safety is and how some people can forget that. A guy puts down a shotgun he forgot was loaded, and, shotguns being shotguns, hit 3 people with bird shot.

You can say no guns = no shootings, but no fires = loss of life or property to fires. Does that mean we should all give up our stoves, oven, and the electrical wiring in our house? Brush fires are a huge problem out west, maybe we should uproot all vegetation in 1/4 mile swaths as fire breaks and salt the land so that nothing grows. My point is: sometimes getting rid of what causes the problem isn't a good answer, and in such a case, we have to look for more adaptable solutions.

A guy puts down a shotgun he forgot was loaded, and, shotguns being shotguns, hit 3 people with bird shot.

A shotgun that goes off when "put down" sounds abysmally bad quality; there is a shit ton of mechanical safeties in any reasonably modern firearm. I suspect he had his finger on the trigger and negligently pulled on it as he removed his hand from the grip. (Rule 3 Fail.)

Admittedly some people have been known to use shotguns as hammers and earned Darwin Awards that way.

And criminals--the people who really shouldn't have them--will obey these laws banning guns... when? They're criminals. THEY DON'T OBEY LAWS.

The police will still have them, and so will the military. And there are cases of both sorts going rogue.

All you accomplish with your law is to disarm the people who don't need to be disarmed. Actually that's not strong enough. They positively should not be disarmed as they are the first line of defense against law breakers.

Oh that makes sense. Just do something, anything, without perhaps considering if it will have any effect at all. Pass a "feel good" law against the symptom, maybe that will work. Let's ignore the fact that you are punishing millions of law-abiding Americans for the crimes of a very few.